Hi everyone! Just a quick one for you today to tell you about God Girls Podcast, a new show by my daughter Sadie (11) and my niece Rachel (12). They wanted to make a show about their faith and other things on the minds of young women. They did it all on their own (OK, I'm helping with the boring button-pushing stuff but the content is all theirs). I'm excited to share a little chat I did with them about the show.

You can find them on your favorite podcast platform by searching "God Girls Podcast" or you can click one of the links below:

Spotify

Anchor

Apple

Google

Amazon

iHeartRadio 

Also, I mentioned Simple Ideas Apparel, my new clothing company. We help small organizations create and sell merchandise to help them raise funds and build fans. You can find God Girls merchandise there along with gear from other organizations and companies. Including a nice Hopefully Somebody Knows long-sleeve logo shirt! 

Finally, more to come here at Hopefully Somebody Knows, we have some ideas brewing for next year. Have a great rest of 2022, we'll talk to you soon!

Today we dig into Parkour. I started training nearly 7 years ago with Parkour Visions, an organization here in Seattle. Since then PKV (as we abbreviate their name) has shifted from running a gym to focusing on bringing parkour to new communities, particularly undeserved schools in the Seattle area. I'm joined today by their outgoing Executive Director, Caitlin Pontrella. Caitlin talks about how she defines parkour, how it differs from other athletic pursuits and the current state of organized kids' sports in America and how parkour stands apart. We spend a lot of time talking about privilege and how it relates to movement/athletics as well as we're both on our own journeys learning about that topic.

This is a good intro discussion if you're looking to learn more about parkour. Here are some other resources and items we talked about during our chat:

Parkour Visions' online classes and YouTube channel.

Breaking the Jump by Julie Angel - a book about parkour's founding and history.

A study by the Aspen Institute called "State of Play", looking at the current state of childrens' organized sports.

I've been meaning to bring on a group of dads I respect for a roundtable discussion for quite some time. The dads in our neighborhood have been weighing what to do about school in the fall (All week in-person? Hybrid? Virtual?) so we thought a fun, honest and respectful discussion on the topic could be helpful to other parents. All 4 of us come at this question from different perspectives and (spoiler alert!) we don't answer the question of "what's the best choice for education during a plague?" but...we took a swing at it. 

I hope all of you are doing OK (physically and mentally). If you ever want to talk (not for the podcast, just about what you're going through) please hit me up at [email protected]. I'd love to catch up and hear what's on your mind. It's good to get this stuff out guys and I'd love to talk with you about it. 

Fun one with my best buddy, Steve Strange. We had to do a do-over of our original discussion due to a tech snafu (which we discuss in our chat) but I think this came out better than that one. Ostensibly the idea here is fandom: is it OK to force what you like on your kids? How do you know if the resulting fandom is authentic or are they just liking something because "daddy likes it"? And does it matter?

In reality this is really more about Star Wars. Steve and I bonded of Star Wars (among other things) in our 20s and it's always been part of our friendship. In fact we're strongly considering starting a separate show where they two of us just talk about Star Wars and other stuff we're enjoying and we'll let you know when that comes out.

Billy Christensen joins us today.  Billy is another one of my fraternity brothers from the SMU Lambda Chi Alpha house. Billy now lives in Atlanta and works in consulting. He reached out via email to propose a discussion about meaning and purpose. This is really cool conversation as it's less about interviewing Billy and more about a back-and-forth discussion of some of the root causes of mid-life crises. Billy is really open and shares a lot about the struggles he feels even while he has all the traditional markers of success - great job, great wife, great kids, etc. He has a really intriguing take about bottling up emotions and looking for those big emotional releases, big highs and lows, and if that could be part of what causes guys to seek out flashy cars or other mid life crises cliches. We also talk a bit about philanthropy as a path to fulfillment and immortality as well embracing of different cultures including spending WAY too much time talking about K-Pop. We end with a talk about therapy and feeling that you are enough. 

We spend a bit of time talking about Stoicsm as well. If you're unfamiliar with Stoicism it's an ancient philosophy that's gained new prominence. Here are a good site to get you started, the Daily Stoic.

Billy also mentioned Brené Brown's TED talk on the "Power of Vulnerability". If you haven't seen it I strongly recommended it, check it out here.

We also joked a bit about K-Pop and Billy's experiences with karaoke in Korea. He suggested a band called BIGBANG...here's a video for you to peruse. 

As always if you'd like to support us please visit our sponsors or the sites and businesses mentioned during our shows. Or the easiest way to support us is to visit our Amazon affiliate link where you can shop as you always do with no product price increase but Amazon will kick a little bit back to us which helps cover our production and marketing costs. Here it is and thanks! "Hopefully Somebody Knows" Amazon Affiliate link.